Statistics alert reporting

Statistics alert reporting enables you to define conditions, in terms of CICS® Transaction Server or CICS Transaction Gateway statistics field values, that interest you. You can then use those conditions to report on CICS statistics stored in SMF files or historical databases.

CICS PA supports specifying an alert definition in the statistics HDB definition. You select the required Statistics reports to be collected in this HDB. When a CICSTS or CICS TG alert report is activated to collect in this HDB, you can use the AO line action (Activate Alert-only collection) to collect only the reports that related to this Alert. “Alert only” reports are only collected if Alert is triggered.

You can collect records that trigger alert conditions in the CICS TS and CICS TG Alert reports, or restrict existing reports to only those records which triggered alert conditions, or you can do both. Where both the alert and the original report record are collected you can hyperlink between them by use of a PF key.

A statistics alert definition can also be used to specify selection criteria for a Statistics List or Summary report or extract. The records selected for inclusion are derived from the fields and formulas contained in the alert definition. For a Statistics List report or extract, you can use an additional Severity level option in the report to filter the records further and to report alert levels.

For each condition, you define an arithmetic formula that uses CICS statistics field names as variables. The formula can be as simple as a single field name, or it can be a combination of field names, arithmetic operators, and numbers. For example, the following formula calculates current active user transactions (statistics field XMGCAT) as a percentage of the maximum task limit (XMGMXT):

XMGCAT / XMGMXT * 100

(All fields in a formula must belong to the same statistics record.)

You can define up to three thresholds for a formula, indicating the severity of the condition: critical, warning, or information. A threshold consists of a comparison operator and a numeric value. For example, to trigger alerts of increasing severity, you could define the following thresholds:

Critical
>95
Warning
>80
Info (Information)
>50

CICS PA reports only the highest severity for a condition: for example, if the formula value is 85, the report contains only a warning alert, not a critical alert or an information alert.

You define conditions in sets; each set is known as a statistics alert definition. When you request a report, you select which statistics alert definition you want to use. This enables you to create reports that target different types of statistics, such as Java™-related statistics, or general performance tuning statistics.

To create a statistics alert report, you need to follow these steps:

  1. Define a statistics alert definition using option 8.5 from the CICS PA Primary Option Menu.

    For more information, see Defining statistics alerts.

  2. Use the statistics alert definition to create a Statistics Alert report.

    To create a Statistics Alert report from SMF files:

    1. Select option 2 Report Sets from the CICS PA Primary Option Menu.
    2. Select or create a report set.
    3. Expand the Statistics Reports category, and then select Alert.

    For more information, see Statistics Alert reports.

    To create a Statistics Alert report from an HDB, you can use either of two options of the CICS PA Primary Option Menu:

    • Via the Historical Database option:
      1. Select option 5 Historical Database from the CICS PA Primary Option Menu.
      2. Select option 4 Report from the Historical Database Menu.

        This displays a list of all HDBs in the Repository, including performance HDBs.

      3. Select the statistics HDB you want to use.
      4. Select Request batch Alert report from the Statistics HDB Reporting Menu.
    • Via the Statistics option:
      1. Select option 6 Statistics from the CICS PA Primary Option Menu.
      2. Select option 3 Historical Databases for CICS Statistics from the CICS Statistics Reporting Menu.

        This displays a list of statistics HDBs in the Repository.

      3. Select the statistics HDB you want to use.
      4. Select Request batch Alert report from the Statistics HDB Reporting Menu.

    To create a Statistics Alert as an extract or using forwarding, see Extracting or forwarding statistics alerts.

For examples of Statistics Alert reports, see STATSALERT examples.